{"id":271851,"date":"2025-11-19T15:29:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T15:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/271851\/"},"modified":"2025-11-19T15:29:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T15:29:09","slug":"axel-henrikssons-start-at-blackburn-rovers-and-new-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/271851\/","title":{"rendered":"Axel Henriksson&#8217;s start at Blackburn Rovers and new system"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n  The midfielder arrived in Lancashire from GAIS in the summer after catching the eye in the Swedish Allsvenskan.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Henriksson has been adapting to English football over the past months and also had a spell out injured with a broken hand.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  However, he has started four of the last six league games and is hungry to kick on as Rovers look to climb the table.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  \u201cIt\u2019s been up and down. I came in and played the first game in the Championship after about two training sessions, then also in the cup,\u201d he told <a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/episode\/1DANh81PMmv7bI2S5N6xWu?ref=ed_direct\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Football\u2019s Coming Home Podcast<\/a> in an interview translated from Swedish.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  \u201cBut I felt I wasn\u2019t as good as I could be, and it was a new playing system and new relationships.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  \u201cIt\u2019s always tough in the beginning. I need to build those relationships, I need passes to me in a certain way.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  \u201cIt\u2019s been three months now and the first half was tough, just practice, practice, practice. I didn\u2019t get to play much, I broke my hand too.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  READ MORE: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk\/news\/25632990.valuable-minutes-rovers-pair-igor-tyjons-world-cup-dream-ends\/?ref=ial\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Valuable minutes for Rovers pair but Igor Tyjon&#8217;s World Cup dream ends<\/a>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  \u201cThen, we changed the formation and now I get to play a similar position to what I did before. It feels better and better.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  \u201cNow we play a 5-3-2 so it\u2019s perfect for me. Back then I was a two-way midfielder, especially on the right which I played the most. It suits me well and that\u2019s where I\u2019m playing now, so it feels great.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Henriksson revealed that one of the biggest changes he has experienced in England is the pace of the game.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  The summer signing also admitted that it takes a bit of time getting used to life off the pitch in a new country.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  \u201cIt\u2019s the physical (side) and the tempo, which are big differences from the Allsvenskan,\u201d he continued.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  \u201cYou have a little less time with the ball and it\u2019s harder to do good things with it because you pressure on you faster.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  \u201cThen, there are the differences of changing countries and all that stuff I did the first time I moved from Gothenburg. It was a little difficult at first but you can\u2019t beat yourself up about that.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  The 23-year-old was also quizzed about working under Valerien Ismael and what the head coach demands.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  \u201cHe is clear about what he wants and what he expects the players to do. He is very demanding, high standards and minimum levels of performance,\u201d said Henriksson.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  \u201cIt\u2019s very clear and good that you know what to do. If you don\u2019t do the basic job defensively, the duels and stuff like that, you don\u2019t play.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  \u201cI started trying to do those things right at the beginning and then maybe the other things come which are a little more difficult.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  \u201cBut that\u2019s what he expects from all the players. There are many close matches and mistakes can be punished.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  \u201cSo maintain a good minimum level and then on top of that, he has clear patterns about what he wants to do in the game as well. He is a good coach.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The midfielder arrived in Lancashire from GAIS in the summer after catching the eye in the Swedish Allsvenskan.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":271852,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-271851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}